The Berlin jazz festival in 1969 was a big Duke Ellington’s 70th birthday celebration. Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor and especially Thelonious Monk all payed tribute to the master.
When the Newport jazz festival of 1969 curated a program where modern jazz met contemporary soul and rock, the Berlin jazz festival which was held in November of the same year still focused on jazz and were a meeting between American and European musicians and the tradition and the avant-garde.
The big names of the festival were Duke Ellington, who that year celebrated his 70th birthday, Sarah Vaughn, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor. One of the traditionalists was stride pianist Joe Turner who had played with Louis Armstrong and who was living in Paris since 1962. Another American expatriate was the more modernistic pianist Steve Kuhn who is still active today. He had recorded with John Coltrane and Stan Getz and now was recording and performing in trio with European rhythm sections. He dedicated his whole set to Duke Ellington.
Among the European musicians were Danish saxophonist John Tichai who had recorded with John Coltrane on Ascension (1965), and British saxophonist John Surman who is still active today.
Duke Ellington in focus
The one musician who more than anybody else symbolized the meeting between the tradition and the modern was Duke Ellington. He started as a leader in 1917 with a style influenced by the stride pianists of the time. He built a catalogue of songs which is still unmatched in popularity, including gems like “In A Sentimental Mood”, “Sophisticated Lady”, “Caravan” and “Satin Doll”. In the 1940s he wrote one of the first jazz suite, “Black, Brown and Beige”, and in the 1960s he was still recording important works like The Far East Suite (1967).
His band at their European tour that year featured star members of the orchestra like alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, and trumpeters Cat Anderson and Cootie Williams, and it also included Wild Bill Davis on organ as an extra added attraction. They played a popular selection of Ellington’s songs and was a big success.
Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk who also performed at the festival were three of the most original modernists of the time, and they all had some connections to Ellington. In his biography Miles Davis tells about how he once was asked by Ellington to join his band. Cecil Taylor recorded songs by Duke Ellington and his associates Billy Strayhorn and Mercer Ellington in the late 1950s and early 1960s which is only natural since Taylor was interested in atonality and Ellington was a composer who had explored areas bordering on it.
They loved him madly
Both Davis and Taylor had moved on musically in the late 1960s. Davis was playing the electric music with rock rhythms that he recorded on the albums In A Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew (1970), but his set at the Berlin jazz festival is announced as dedicated to Duke Ellington. The concert which featured Davis´ quintet with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette was filmed, and it has been released on DVD on the set Miles Davis in Europe 1969 (2013). They start with ”Directions” by pianist Joe Zawinul who used to play Ellington’s ”Come Sunday” as a solo feature when he was a member of Cannonball Adderley’s band.
Five years later when Duke Ellington died, and Davis was playing even more electric rock-oriented music he dedicated the song “He Loved Him Madly” to Duke Ellington.
Cecil Taylor was touring with a quartet with saxophonist Sam Rivers and Jimmy Lions and drummer Andrew Cyrille. They played very dense uncompromising music in one long continuous set. The music is organized in some way since Rivers and Lyons will play new themes in unison during the concert but it still sounds like it is very free improvised in between these guide posts, which forces you to concentrate more than when you are listening to more conventional music with defined melodies and rhythms. It too is announced as dedicated to Duke Ellington, but I doubt that it sounds any different from the other concerts this quartet played at the time. There is an audio recording of the concert in very good quality which can be found online.
From Monk to Duke
Thelonious Monk like Taylor had played the songs of Duke Ellington on his 1956 trio album Thelonious Monk plays Duke Ellington. He was present at the festival as a solo pianist and played several of Ellington’s most famous songs, like “Caravan”, “Satin Doll”, and “Sophisticated Lady”. He had recorded several of them on his Ellington tribute album. He plays them in his usual stripped-down stride style which can sound a bit naïve. I love it but not all the audience present at the festival sounds happy since there is some audible booing among the applauds on the existing recording.
You can understand the reaction to Monk’s performance when Ellington and his band enters the stage. They seduce the audience with their full and varied orchestra arrangements while Monk almost is testing the audience with his sparse arrangements which almost sound unrehearsed or amateurish.
Charles Mingus was not active in 1969 but he was probably the modern composer and band leader most openly inspired by Ellington as can be heard on albums by him like The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. Archie Shepp who was one of the avant-garde musicians of the time included songs by Ellington on most of his albums. So, Ellington was still very much a part of the new music in the 1960s, and given the importance of Monk, Davis and Taylor to modern music Ellington could have felt proud inspiring them.
Jazz Desk 